Happy weekend! And to those of you who celebrated Rosh Hashanah this week, happy new year. I greeted the holiday with Isa‘s vegan challah from Superfun Times and a gathering with my chosen family on Thursday evening. It was a lovely night, rich in conversation and good food. I got to thinking about how five months ago I sat at the exact same table for Passover, my outlook and spirits so different than they are now. I remember how much it took for me…

Happy Sunday, friends. Hope the weekend has been good to you. My big news this week is that my new cookbook, Power Plates, is officially available for pre-order whenever books are sold! The on-sale date is January 23, which seems far away now, but the time will fly, and it’s incredible to me that it’s all becoming real. At this time last year, I was still in the thick of the recipe testing process, my kitchen a perpetual gauntlet of dirty dishes. It felt…

I brought a lot of food writing with me to Prague, including Julia Child’s My Life in France, Molly Wizenburg’s A Homemade Life, and Laurie Colwin’s Home Cooking, which I’ve read plenty of times, but could probably revisit indefinitely. I also read Jenni Ferrari-Adler’s essay collection Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant, which is a compilation of reflections on cooking for oneself. I’d read excerpts from the book a long time ago, and I was excited to revisit it in the context…

Two weeks ago, right after my summer courses ended, I spent some time getting to know Prague. It was a trip I had committed to this spring, fresh on the heels of my breakup. I was eager for an escape, but it wasn’t just about that. I was also thinking about how I’ve delayed seeing more of the world for a long time now. My reasoning seemed sensible: I’d think about the cost of travel, the things I needed to do here at…

This is the last Sunday before the first day of my fall semester, which I can’t believe is here already; I’ve got my first class, Ethnic and Therapeutic Meal Patterns, on on Wednesday. Tomorrow I’ll be mapping out my work schedule for September, getting my syllabi in order, and continuing to unpack and catch up from some recent travel, which I’ll have more to share about next week. I like the “back-to-school” energy; it always feels so purposeful. And I’m marveling at the…

I wrapped up my summer coursework this week, including my Program Planning class, which was not exactly what I thought it would be. I was expecting us to spend a lot of time writing guides, studying policy, and reading briefs and papers, as we have in other classes that are geared toward public health initiatives. Instead, we spent nearly the entire class discussing Ann Fadiman’s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. It’s a book I read a long time ago, because…

I’ve been thinking a lot about change this week, how it creeps up unexpectedly and often without any help from us. For a while this past spring it was as if I was suspended in time, which at that moment didn’t feel like much of a good thing. The days were long and stifling, overpopulated by anxious thoughts. It’s different now; I don’t feel as if I’m dragging myself through time. The quality of my day-to-day experience is richer and fuller. There’s more…